Meaning & Origins

Variant of Colman (from Late Latin Columbanus, a derivative of Columba ‘dove’ see Callum). In part it also represents a transferred use of the surname, which derives in most cases from the Gaelic personal name Colmán, but in others may be an occupational term for a charcoal burner.

Spanish: occupational name for a beater or other assistant at a hunt, from an agent derivative of monte, which, as well as meaning ‘mountain’, ‘hill’, could be used in the transferred sense of a game forest on wooded upland. The occupational term was itself also used as a title for any of various palace functionaries, and some cases of the surname may derive from this.